1,000 fugitives, including around 400 Taliban militants, were freed from captivity. In the Taliban's most sophisticated operation yet, two months in the planning rockets, truck bombs and suicide bombs were used in a 30 minute battle. in the same 24-hour period, four US soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in western Afghanistan.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
While We Surge in Iraq, Afghanistan Is Going down the Toilet
A Massive Prison Escape in Kandahar for Taliban Fighters
1,000 fugitives, including around 400 Taliban militants, were freed from captivity. In the Taliban's most sophisticated operation yet, two months in the planning rockets, truck bombs and suicide bombs were used in a 30 minute battle. in the same 24-hour period, four US soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in western Afghanistan.
1,000 fugitives, including around 400 Taliban militants, were freed from captivity. In the Taliban's most sophisticated operation yet, two months in the planning rockets, truck bombs and suicide bombs were used in a 30 minute battle. in the same 24-hour period, four US soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in western Afghanistan.
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7 comments:
Are you cheering, Messenger?
To quote an Afghan, "This was a bad day. We're not having a bad year." Not yet, maybe.
More Americans were killed in Afghanistan in May, than in Iraq.
That makes it a bad month.
Fears of big battle as Taliban fighters dig in
The Taliban have long prized Arghandab, whose pomegranate orchards and vineyards make for ideal guerrilla fighting ground. Soviet troops never managed to capture the area during the 10-year occupation that ended in 1989.
Obama pledges to go to Afghanistan before the November elections. A good move, IMO.
What is the mission?
Pepe Escobar interviews Professor Barnett Rubin of NYU – (8 minutes), asking, "What is NATO's mission in Afghanistan?" He goes on to say, "I went to Brussels and asked that to the Europeans, and I got 27 bewildered countries saying 'We don't know. We were misled by the Bush administration'."
Professor Rubin says that "NATO now has the command of the International Security Assistance Force" (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Initially ISAF was set up under a UN mandate just to provide security in the Kabul area and to train new Afghan security forces. However, they have now had to expand into the Afghan provinces as well.
Rubin says that at present the problem with NATO in Afghanistan is that ISAF is an "Institutional Command Structure" with "the problem of trying to implement what is essentially a post-conflict operation while the conflict is escalating." He says the situation has arisen because the US administration has put Afghanistan "on auto-pilot" while concentrating on Iraq. NATO allies have said they were deceived by the Bush administration at least in part because initially the US had assured its allies that they "would take of any problems with Pakistan" with regard to Taliban bases in Pakistan.
According to Rubin, those at the top leadership of the Bush administration were so focused on Al Queda and the terrorist threat that they had not taken into consideration that "Pakistan still really did not consider the Taliban to be an enemy."
This was to "counter measures against an Indian presence in Afghanistan. And also to assure that the United States continues to need Pakistan for something. In order to maintain their military supply relationship which is essential to their defense against India."
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